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VALLEY FORGE 



1898. 




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Valley Forge. 



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AN 



ADDRESS 



BY 



Hon. Samuel W. Pennypacker, LL.D. 



BEFORE THE 



Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the 
Revolution, 



JUNE 18, 189 8. 




PHILADELPHIA. 



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Hbbress 

of 

IKon, Samuel MbitaP^cr penni^pacF^cr, XX,2),, 

Delivered at Dalleg fforae, IPa., June IS, 1898. 



Gentlemen of the Sons of the Revolution: 

I FEEL that I owe you somewhat of an apology for arising in 
this presence, and with these surroundings, without having 

made more formal preparation. I am led to the effort, how- 
ever, because the story of Valley Forge has been fully written, 
and has been eloquently spoken, so that upon an occasion of this 
character nothing more will be expected from me than a modest 
contribution, and because I feel that the importance of the few 
facts which I shall have to present to you will more than compen- 
sate for any lack of vigor in expression. 

Valley Forge lies in a classic region. Across yonder hills 
was born Anthony Wayne, whose capture of Stony Point was the 
brilliant achievement of the Revolutionary Army, and who, later, 
in command of all the armies of the United States, won for us 
the great territory of the Northwest, from which were created the 
populous and powerful States which now exist in that section of 
the country. 

Five miles away in another direction was born Peter Muhlen- 
berg, a major-general in the Revolutionary Army, whose statue 
in the Capitol at Washington represents the military achievements 
of Pennsylvania. 

The road over which you have just marched was laid out in 
1724, from Philadelphia to Moore Hall, the seat of William 

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Valley jforoe. 



Moore, colonel of a regiment in the French and Indian War, 
President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Chester 
County for forty years, and a heroic figure in the political life of 
the province. 

The high-water mark of the Rebellion was at the Bloody 
Angle on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg ; the high-water mark 
of the British invasion during the Revolutionary War was at the 
Fountain Inn tavern, four miles above us in the town of Phcenix- 
ville. In front of you, from Gordon's Ford to Fatland Ford, the 
British army forced the passage of the Schuylkill at the time of 
the capture of Philadelphia. 

At the mouth of the Perkiomen, on the opposite side of the 
Schuylkill, was fought the only naval engagement which ever 
occurred upon that river, and later Audubon, the naturalist, 
hunted for birds along the same stream, and there made his home. 

Almost within sight of us lies the rural and Pennsylvania 
Dutch village of the Trappe, with a population, it may be, of four 
hundred people, whose houses are stretched on each side of the 
pike. In that village there lived the founder of one of the most 
important of the American churches. In it were born a major- 
general in the Revolutionary Army and a United States Senator ; 
the president of the first American Congress under the Constitu- 
tion ; one of the most noted of American botanists, whose labors 
and writings have met with approval over the world ; a colonel 
in the war of 1812 and an adjutant-general and attorney-general 
of Wisconsin ; a governor of the State of Pennsylvania ; a presi- 
dent of Girard College ; an auditor-general of the State of Penn- 
sylvania; a congressman and two state senators. In it there 
lived the ancestors of the Todds of Kentucky, and the maternal 
ancestors of General Grant, besides another general of the Revo- 
lutionary Army. I challenge any community in this broad land, 
from Maine to Texas, to show that with the same population they 
have produced an equal number of people of like distinction in 
public life. 

Much as the history of Valley Forge has been examined and 
studied, heretofore that investigation has never been able to dis- 
cover an original and authentic plan of the encampment as it was 



Dalles iforcje. 



during the Revolutionary War. When Jared Sparks, the his- 
torian, in the early part of this century, was preparing for publi- 
cation the letters of George Washington, he was confronted with 
the need of such a plan. Under the auspices of John Armstrong, 
who was then Secretary of War, a man named John Davis, who 
as a youth had lived on the site of the encampment, but who was 
then an old man, gave his recollections as specifically as he could, 
and from such data a map was prepared which was inserted in 
those volumes. The original is now at Cornell University, in the 
State of New York. They have there another plan which the 
librarian writes to me is a copy of one found among the papers 
of Sparks. In 1828, Sparks had had access to the letters and 
papers of Lafayette, and this copy is supposed to be a copy of a 
plan which was in the possession of Lafayette ; but an examina- 
tion of it shows that it was not made from original surveys, for 
there is written upon it in French the statement that the lines as 
they there appear are not in their due places, but ought to be ex- 
tended further out to the front, and that a bend in the river is not 
disclosed. Now it so happens that within the last year I secured 
from Amsterdam a set of most important military maps of the 
Revolutionary period, consisting of originals drawn at the time by 
a French engineer, who was with the Continental army. Among 
them are plans of the Battle of Trenton, of West Point, of New- 
port, Rhode Island, of New York, of the Battle of Yorktown, of 
Charleston, and last, and of the most interest to us, a plan of 
the encampment at Valley Forge.* After considering what 
would be the best way of calling the attention of scholars to 
this important contribution to the history of the Revolutionary 
War, I could think of none better than to present it upon this 
occasion, before the Sons of the Revolution, and to let it appear 
in the forthcoming volume which you are about to publish. This 

* This map shows what was not before known, that the Carolina troops were 
encamped on the north side of the valley creek in Chester County ; and that head- 
quarters, before Washington occupied the Potts house, were not, as has been alleged, 
in a marque6 tent, but were at the house in Tredyffrin Township, Chester County, 
then owned by James Davis, and subsequently by Dr. William Harris and by Dr. J. R. 
Walker. 



Dalles? 3Forae. 



demonstration will not be without permanent importance, since 
you have the assurance that in the manner just described you 
have added something whose historical value cannot be overesti- 
mated to the records of the event you celebrate. 

The antithesis of Valley Forge is the fete given by the British 
troops in the city of Philadelphia, called " The Meschianza." 
That incomparable orator, Henry Armitt Brown, in his magnifi- 
cent oration, to which probably some of you listened, when he 
depicted the clouds which darkened over Valley Forge, threw the 
sunlight upon the lawn of Joseph Wharton in the city of Phila- 
delphia. Novelists have been attracted by the same theme. The 
earliest effort of this kind, " Meredith ; or, the Mystery of the 
Meschianza," by Dr. James McHenry, appeared in Philadelphia 
in 1 83 1, and possessed decided literary merit. The next was 
"The Quaker Soldier," by Colonel J. Richter Jones, in 185 1, and 
then came " Pemberton," by Henry Peterson, in 1873, and last, 
that great book, " Hugh Wynne," of which we are all proud, 
written by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell during the past year, which has 
called increased attention to Pennsylvania literature all over the 
world. 

None of the investigators or writers upon these topics have 
been able to give to us the music to which the well dressed and 
highly cultivated ladies of Philadelphia, and Andre and the offi- 
cers of the British army who were there as knights, danced at 
the Meschianza. But, though out of sight, it was not utterly 
lost. A happy chance preserved it and favors us. Those dances 
were dedicated to the wives of the favorite colonels, and they bore 
the names of the victories which the British army had won, such 
as " Flatbush," at Long Island, and " Brandywine." From that 
time down to the present that music has never been heard, and 
now, upon this occasion, this audience will, for the first time in 
one hundred and twenty years, and long after the last of the 
Knights of the Blended Rose is in his grave, listen to the music 
of the country dance of " Brandywine." Your band will play it. 

(The band then played " Brandywine," which was enthusiasti- 
cally received.) 



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There were other contrasts presented at Valley Forge. In 
February of 1778, late one afternoon, an officer in the army, fan- 
cying that one of his fellows had given him some insult, chal- 
lenged his antagonist to a duel. The combat occurred the next 
morning, and that night the officer was buried on the outskirts of 
the camp. William McFee, one of the chaplains, upon the next 
Sunday, preached a sermon upon the evils of duelling. The 
names of the officer and his opponent, so far as I know, are lost 
in obscurity, but the sermon is still preserved. 

Benedict Arnold, later in the season, at the home of Mistress 
Rossiter, where he had been taken with three wounds after the 
battle of Saratoga, gave a feast. It may have been somewhat like 
that of which you are to partake to-day. There were twenty-one 
officers present. Among them were Wayne, Lafayette, Greene, 
Knox, and Colonel Clement Biddle. 

Later in 1778, about the 14th of December, another fact 
occurred to which I have never seen attention called. The army 
of General Burgoyne, captured in New York, and which it was 
thought desirable to remove to Winchester, in Virginia, were 
marched across the country, over Sullivan's bridge, then still 
standing a few hundred yards below this encampment, and 
brought up to the huts which the American army had left, and 
were there quartered. Think of the contrast the scene presented, 
and imagine the sensations of the proud officers of that army, 
compelled to occupy the abandoned huts of the ragged Conti- 
nentals. 

And now, what is the moral of Valley Forge ? Why is it that 
this camp, where no battle was fought, and where no startling and 
momentous events occurred, has been fixed forever in the memo- 
ries of men ? Have you ever thought that, while true it is that 
the great Virginian was born along the banks of the Potomac, 
substantially the whole of his career was run in the State of Penn- 
sylvania, and of what were the reasons for this fact? He first 
attracted attention at the battle of Great Meadows, in 1754; he 
won his early reputation at the defeat of Braddock, in 1755 ; he 
was a member of the Congress of 1774, which met in Carpenters' 
Hall; on the 15th of June, 1775, in Independence Hall, he was 



lDaUe\? fovQC, 



made the commander-in-chief of the armies of the colonies. 
Save Long Island, which was a defeat, and Yorktown, where 
he was aided by the French fleet, and where it was a question 
whether the victory was won by the sailors of the French navy 
or the soldiere of the American army, all' of his battles were 
fought around Philadelphia, at Germantown, Brandywine, Tren- 
ton, Princeton, and Monmouth. 

During his career subsequent to the war, as President of the 
Constitutional Convention of 1787, and as President of the United 
States through two terms, he lived, with the exception of a few 
months, in the city of Philadelphia. 

Let me read to you an extract from the oration delivered by 
David Ramsay, the celebrated contemporary historian, upon the 
death of George Washington, wherein he describes the General 
at the battle of Trenton : 

" In the latter end of November the British commanders, in- 
stead of retiring into winter quarters, after driving the Americans 
from the State of New York, pursued them into New Jersey, with 
a fair prospect of annihilating their whole force. The moment 
was critical. Dangers and difficulties pressed on all sides. On 
the 1 6th of November twenty-seven hundred of the American 
army were taken prisoners in Fort Washington. In fourteen days 
after that event the flying camp, amounting to ten thousand men, 
having served out their time, claimed their discharge. Other 
whole regiments on similar grounds did the same. The few that 
remained with General Washington scarcely exceeded three thou- 
sand, and they were in the most forlorn condition, without tents 
or blankets, or any utensils to dress their provisions. ... In this 
period, when the American army was relinquishing their general, 
and the people giving up the cause, some of their leaders going 
over to the enemy, and the British commanders succeeding in 
every enterprise, General Washington did not despair. He slowly 
retreated before the advancing foe, and determined to fall back to 
Pennsylvania, to Augusta County in Virginia, and, if necessary, 
to the westward of yonder mountains, where he was resolved in 
the last extremity to renew the struggle for the independence of 
his country. While his unconquered mind was brooding on these 



Dallci^ iforcje. 



ideas, fifteen hundred of the Pennsylvania militia joined him. 
With this small increase of force, he formed the bold resolution 
of recrossing the Delaware and attacking that part of the enemy 
which was posted in Trenton. Heaven smiled on the enterprise. 
On the 26th of December nine hundred Hessians were killed, 
wounded, or taken prisoners. This bold enterprise was in eight 
days after followed by another, which was planned with great 
address. General Washington, with his whole army, stole away 
under the cover of the night from the vicinity of a force far supe- 
rior to his own, and, attacking in their rear a detachment of the 
British posted in Princeton, three hundred were taken prisoners 
and about one hundred killed and wounded. These two victories 
revived the drooping spirits of the Americans, and seemed, under 
Providence, to have been the means of their political salvation." 

In other words, when this fateful crisis occurred, and when 
Washington, with all of his military capacity, had no means to 
suggest with which to meet it except retreat beyond the Alle- 
gheny Mountains, fifteen hundred men came to the rescue, and 
with that addition to his forces the tide was turned, and the 
liberty of the American people was secured. What you Sons of 
the Revolution ought ever to remember is that every one of those 
fifteen hundred men was a Pennsylvanian. 

The mercurial and the excitable who enter readily into serious 
contests rarely have those sterner and stronger quaHties which 
are necessary for success in important warfare. A Peter the 
Hermit may begin a Crusade, but it requires the doughty skill of 
a Godfrey of Boulogne and a Richard Coeur-de-Lion to carry it 
to the end. The revolutions that start with a Mirabeau close 
with a Bonaparte. Our American Revolution, though it had its 
commencement at Lexington, inevitably resulted in a struggle for 
the control of the shores of the Delaware. 

The camp at Valley Forge holds its preeminent position in 
history and in story because here, better than in the council, and 
better even than on the field of battle, were shown those qualities 
of persistence and steadfastness, under the greatest of trials and 
difficulties, which were essential to the final triumph. 




CONTEMPORARY MAP Of THE ENCAMPMENT AT VALLEV FORGE i;,j.,« -B, . F«nch E«| 
From Ihe Ofljlul In ih. Litory of HON. SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER. LL. U. 
CcpyitgM by lie Pemuylmili S«ckly of Son. of tlio Rovolulion, 1898. 



